


Making a Baker

by gardnerhill



Series: A Study In Crimson [13]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Male Character of Color, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 13:59:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7621096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Piracy isn’t just drinking rum, waving a cutlass, and saying “Arr.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making a Baker

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2016 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #29, **Arr! Arr! ARRR! Arr! Arr!** Send Holmes and/or Watson down to the dockyards, or away to sea, or aboard a ship. Sinister cargo, sinister crew? Does a sailor come to them for help, or is there mischief brewing down at the harbour warehouses? It's up to you!

“Now, Jun.” Angel faced the thin black lad glaring up at him. “This is the correct way to hold a knife. Don’t just stab – aim your whole arm like so.”

The boy lunged at the bos’n, swinging, and the big tattooed man pivoted so that the lad sprawled in the sand.

Wiggins laughed along with a few other at-liberty shipmates seated around the makeshift arena, the long stretch of beach in the Tobago cove where the _Baker_ was moored whilst we reprovisioned and recrewed her.

Angel made no move to help Jun as the lad scrambled to his feet again. “If I was trying to kill you, my knife would already be in your back.”

Jun snarled something in Carib. Angel only said something back in the same island tongue. “Again,” the tall black man said in English. “Knife in the other hand now. Bend your knees a little. Be a leopard, about to spring.”

“We’re teaching that little shark how to kill us better?” Murray gave Jun an uneasy look, one hand going to the red scar where his left ear had been.

“I believe Jun has set his sights on Cap’n Shear-Lock,” I replied, taking the other oar of the little boat in my remaining hand. “He might want to cut a few throats after he’s gullied the captain, but the rest of us are safe until that day.”

“Ambitious.” The sailing-master nodded grudgingly. “That just might make him a good fighting-master if he lives long enough.”

I didn’t answer, but I too was beginning to like the lad’s fierceness and refusal to be frightened by men who’d killed two sailors from his old ship before his eyes. As Shear-Lock no doubt had seen from the very beginning, there was a formidable pirate lurking in that scrawny cabin-boy.

The captain of the _Baker_ was away, gang-pressing more men into service aboard the ship in Shear-Lock’s own unique way – that was, looking each man up and down and telling the stunned tar his own life story back to him, letting him know there was a place aboard a barque with enough danger and profit to share. It was a far more successful way to gain loyal shipmates than the usual rum-and-a-club that served the Royal Navy and indeed many ships from other countries.

Other crewmembers were not idle. Angelo had sent Billy and Dix into town to restock his galley; All-Thumbs was bringing back nails and rope and timbers; Small and Tonga for canvas and tar. Those men still aboard holystoned the deck or scraped the hull or mended or caulked or painted wherever needed. The rest mended their clothes or gear, carved trinkets out of bone or wood, played music.

Murray and I had no chance to watch more of Jun’s fight training, for Hector sat in the boat with us and directed us to the site where we would continue our own, equally-pleasant lessons. My gut tightened, but I pulled off my shirt one-handed, careful not to snag the linen on my bone-saw for a left hand, and unlaced my trousers. Back into the water – first to float without panicking, and then to kick with our legs, and then to move forward using our hands as oars. Oars... I looked at the flat, oarlike blade of my saw-hand, and this time did not remove it before getting in the warm water.  
  
Into the water with no bottom. Panic for a second, then the voice of the carpenter’s mate came back to me. _Like a boat. Float like a boat._ I went limp, and up I went to the surface, resting light and easy as a bit of driftwood.

“On your backs. Float like a boat.”

Thrashing a moment. More panic, and I remembered Jun lunging in anger and falling. Go limp. Float like a boat. And I was in the water, and still breathing air. It was a miracle.

“Your arms are oars. Sweep.”

Sweep. And I shot forward with one sweep of my oar-bladed saw-hand, and moved much less after my right hand did the same move. I was right. I grinned up at the blazing tropical sun. My saw now had a new purpose.

The vast bulk of our ship loomed over our swimming site. Matew stood at the railing near us with a harpoon ready for any sharks who might hinder our lessons – and would serve as tasty fresh fish for the shipbound men such as we, unable to visit Port of Spain to try the famed goat and chicken curries over rice that were specialties of this island.

Another sweep – this time turning my right hand to imitate the blade of an oar, the blade of my saw. Backward, like a crayfish, and again, through the water. I could do this. I would do this. Soon I’d be able to swim all the way round the _Baker_ , and only then would I proudly let the Cap’n know that I was a true Baker at last.

A roar of noise from the beach – the fierce, joyful shouts of men watching a good fight. I bolted upright, founded, sank, spluttered, calmed, went still… and floated upward. My god, it worked, it truly worked. I swept with my saw and hand to scuttle me backward till I head-butted Hector’s boat, foundered again, and gripped the side. Hector was kneeling up in the boat, as naked as we still were from our swim but head turned toward the shore. “I think you’re needed ashore, Dr. Jack,” he said as Murry foundered his way over as gracefully as I.

The truth of Hector’s words was made clear when we touched ground and waded onto the shore. Angel stood with a proud grin and a bleeding gash on his right forearm, and other Bakers were slapping Jun’s back. The boy still glared at all the men around him and still gripped his knife – correctly, for fighting still – but he stood taller than I’d seen him pose before.

“A good gash, Master Jun,” I said, examining the slice. Wiggins had already dashed off to fetch my surgeon’s kit. “Any deeper and Mr. Angel would be as one-armed as me. Now that is how you fight like a man.”

Jun stood even straighter.

I thought of my own afternoon in the water. I wanted to impress Shear-Lock, and Jun wanted to kill him; as a result, we’d both had a splendid day of instruction.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Further Note:** I’d have been gullied for sure by several WW shipmates if I let this prompt pass without a return to the good ship _Baker_.


End file.
